Thursday Drink Night Anniversary!

I don’t talk about this much, but I’m a member of the Cocktail and Spirits Online Writers Group, Guild, Gang, Gigolos, or… well, I forget, really. We’re a non-profit organization that offers educational and cocktail-appreciation events for the general public, via online publishing and live events. It’s through this writers’ gang that I’m going to New York in a couple of months to attend BarSmarts Live (I’ll have more to say about this soon), and it’s also through this group that I receive many of the product samples that I do, as brands attempt to reach out to the public through our group.

The Mixoloseum is our online presence. The Mixo front page currently includes a rudimentary cocktail database; you’re free to try it, but the web monkeys are still populating the database with drinks recipes and hammering out the programming of the search engine and the design of the page. The two main areas of the Mixo are the blog and the chat room, and it’s in this latter area where you’ll find us yammering at each other at pretty much any hour of the day or night.

One of these events that CSOWG hosts in the chat room is Thursday Drink Night, which happens one night a week at 7 p.m. Eastern time. The guild’s boffins choose a theme, and anyone who attends can create a new drink based on that theme, or can simply sit back and watch the hilarity. You can adapt a classic, or you can go all crazy and build something new. If you’re like me, folks will make your drink, make polite noises, toss it in the sink, and never speak of it again. If you’re actually talented, though, your drink goes up for a vote. If you’re voted Mixolomancer of the Week or whatever, you win a real prize!

Sometimes, TDN, as we affectionately call it as we cradle it in our arms and caress its chin, is sponsored by a liquor brand. Past sponsors have included Beefeater 24 gin, Fernet Branca herbal liqueur, Absinthe Mata Hari, and Oval vodka. And sometimes, TDN includes a live component, wherein a bunch of nerds invade a hosting bar, set up laptops in a corner, gank the bar’s wi-fi, and chat with the other geeks in the far-flung reaches of wherever. Back in April, I was in Brooklyn for the Beefeater 24 TDN.

Upcoming, we have, well… just stick around. We have some exciting sponsors coming up, including a few well-known brands.

This week is an unsponsored night; it’s the first anniversary of TDN and the theme is Tiki. Our extra-special guest star this Thursday will be Tiki author, sartorialist, and raconteur Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. This week’s prizes include a beautiful 50 cm gold Japanese bar spoon (that’s nearly 20 inches, folks, one of the longest spoons you’ll see), six of the newest books from Cocktail Kingdom, a signed bottle each of Obsello and Port of Barcelona gin, and a bottle of Old New Orleans Cajun spiced rum.